Decision Episode Body - Ewan Mic

So, I was at breakfast with a mentor, someone I have respected for over a decade. What he's built, what he's done, he's built over a nine-figure business, and how many people have done that, .0001% of people in the world will ever do that. He was a very unique and special person, and I've seen him develop over the years, which has also been fascinating, but I was sitting there at breakfast, and I always pick his brain because he's done things no one else has, so I'm always curious, how has he done it? And that was one of the very questions I asked him, I said, what makes you different? What have you done that has been able to allow you to make this happen? And I was expecting this just mind-blowing, like a whopper of a secret, like the insider circle secret that only 100 millionaires know, and he said, I make fast decisions, I make decisions very quickly. I remember feeling so deflated, I was like, that's it? What does that mean? How does that, fast decisions? I was like, oh, okay, great, so I ended up writing the note down, and this was a number of years ago, and over time, I've thought about this over and over, and I've watched people like him, his personality type, aka you, Sean, and a few other guys, same kind of mindset, and I get it now, I understand, and if you were to break it down logically, if you are afraid to make a decision, you don't make it, and you procrastinate. I don't even want to call it procrastinate, I mean, maybe you're just, you don't want to make that mistake, so you wait, you do more research, you do more studying, you analyze it more. Let's say, let's take an example of the piano. Like I don't know why I keep coming back to that, I played the piano for a while, and if I just thought about it, studied, and just analyzed how to do it, meanwhile, you're over there just plugging away, making mistakes, and getting better and better, while I'm still thinking about it, you're halfway to playing a song, right? And that's true with, especially in business, you have to know what doesn't work, quickly, because if you wait for a long period of time, you're just waiting longer to find that first mistake, as opposed to if you make it quick, you're going to find that mistake out much quicker. Do you resonate with what I'm saying? Does that make sense? Like when I watch you, I feel like that is how you do a lot of things. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's applied in every area of life, right? For me, the first thing that I think of is like business, right? When you're hiring somebody or firing somebody. The whole thing is hire slow, right? Because you want to make sure that they fit within the business, they fit your values, they fit your mission, they fit your why and your purpose, and they're buying into that and not just focusing on what is my pay, what is my salary, right? They're the wrong focus. And so, that is a slower decision, versus when you're ready to fire somebody, that's a faster decision, right? You have to be decisive. Because most people are like, you know what, I'm just going to drag my feet, I don't want to fire him, it's uncomfortable, but that's where you need to make the fast decisions on firing. Because if you don't, what happens is, is that individual is going to be cancerous within the organization, within the company. Because they're pulling everybody else down. What about when at a start, like people want to start a business? Most people you talk to are like, oh yeah, I'd love to own my own business. Oh, I've got this idea, this passion behind it, they'd love to do it. But they never end up doing anything. They want to build something, put something together, and they don't do it. And when people don't do things, it's typically out of fear. They don't want to fail, they don't know what to do next, and so they don't do anything. And that is the death of a dream, right there, because you had this wonderful idea. It never comes to fruition. What is it with people not wanting to make those decisions that would give them the information they need, right? Like, that's why, if I was to, now knowing what I know now, it's like, well you make that decision to get your information quicker, to figure out that didn't work. What do you think that is? Like, if someone was, let's just use the example of building a business, starting it, they don't, or they take forever. And we know this, the momentum, you don't have the momentum, it's a slow death. It just doesn't happen. Have you seen that? Yeah, 100%, man. And unfortunately, you see that too often, because so many people have the aspirations, they have the dreams, they have the want to do that, right? To go out and build that freedom, build that financial freedom, that time freedom. And what happens is, procrastinate. You don't make the decision to take that leap of faith, take that step. And what I mean by that is, I'm not saying go out and quit your job. I'm not saying go out and, you know, start scratch, right? The decision, when I'm decisive, when I have studied folks that make fast decisions, this could be meaning staying in your job, right? But if you want to start that business, what is one decision that you can make to move the needle 1%? Yeah. Maybe that's start reaching out to your warm prospects or your warm friends in your community and letting them know, hey, this is what I'm doing. That's the decision. That is a decisiveness that you can do. So when you say that, it makes super logical sense to you. It's like, you make that fast decision. Yeah. Go do that. That's right. Most people are like, errr, breaks. Well, let me think about who I want to call logical step. And then they say to themselves, well, that's logical. You just think about that, right? Because I'm going to put this list together. And when I'm going to call them, I'll call them next week. How about that? Next week shows up. Well, I'm not quite ready yet. I need to do a little more research to do what it is I need to do with them. And then the decisions are spread out. And how do you, here's what I know. Because this leads perfectly into making, it's not innate. This is, it has come to some people easily, but what I've learned, it is a learnable skill to be able to make decisions faster. Have you noticed yourself speeding up with decision making once you discovered that you can make those decisions and make a mistake and fail? Do you remember that kind of moment? Or can you contrast today versus the past? So when I think of decision making, the reason I like to make fast decisions is because it allows me to fail and fail fast. And what I mean by that is, if I make that decision to do whatever it may be, then I'm going to learn really quick with that decision on that I made that's either going to move the needle closer to where I want to be or it's not. So I can correct course. Now, for somebody that's listening to this like me. Yeah, they're not like that. Yeah, what would you tell them? I struggle with decisiveness. I struggle with decision making. Man, what I would challenge you to do is do something as simple as what are you having for dinner? Or where are you going for dinner on your date night this week? What do most people do? I don't know, where do you want to go? Well, I don't know, where do you want to go, right? That's indecisiveness. What ends up happening? Escalation, fight, bickering, right? Yeah, because it's unsure, it's uncertain and nobody knows what to do next. Yes, so make the decision. I don't care what McDonald's, cool. What you just did is you made the decision. You go there, you have a good time. It's not where you go, but it's who you're with. So now making that decision like, oh man, the food wasn't that great. But what you were focused on, because where focus goes is your clothes, so where you focus on is making the decision. It's a skill set, it's a muscle memory, right? And so now you built that confidence like, hey, I made the freaking decision to go to McDonald's. And your wife's going to say, or your husband's going to say, that was disgusting, why did you pick that place? They can't argue at you because you made the decision to go there. And now you just killed two birds with one stone. You made the decision and you built confidence in doing it. No joke, you didn't, I'm talking to the audience here, like you didn't know this. I used to, me and my wife, we'd be like, where do you want to go to dinner tonight? I'm like, and I wouldn't want to decide because I wanted to make sure that we were going somewhere she wanted to go. And so I'd be like, I don't know where, where would you like to go? Because I want to be courteous, I want to be a gentleman. She's like, I don't know where I want to go. She was like, you decide. And I'd be like, I know if I pick the wrong decision, she's not going to be happy and it's going to be on me. We didn't have a good time. That's probably, probably never even happened. But in the mind, it's like, well, if I pick the wrong spot. So I learned, I was like, I don't like this. Because I know she probably has something in mind. So I'm not kidding. I would say, I'd say, where do you want to go for dinner? She's like, I don't know, you pick. I'm like, okay, McDonald's. She's like, no, I don't want to go there. How about here? And then she'd tell me where she wanted to go. So I would make the decision and it made another decision show up out of the real thing would come out. It was almost like I was helping her, I was helping me find out where she really wanted to go. Because that would just be easy. It wouldn't matter. But anyways, that's a side note. Because you said the McDonald's thing and it was terrible. So I would always pick that and the real thing would come out. But you're right, though, on just being decisive. It's okay to make a decision. It can be changed. The consequences of going to the wrong restaurant, for example, is not the end of the world. Just pick it. It's minimal. So on starting a business, for example, when people are taking their time, they're procrastinating, they're not sure what to do yet, how do you comfort them? Because once they feel more comfortable and know it's okay, that's when they start doing it more and more. How do you coach someone to get to that moment? Yeah, I think it really comes down to within. Internally, confidence in yourself. Because if you're not going to have belief or confidence in yourself, then the number one piece of advice that I would give is find that partner, accountability partner, whether it's your spouse, whether maybe it's your kid saying, Daddy, you got this. I want you to share this story with Kel about the decision to post a video or not with your son Lachlan. Why don't you go ahead and share that? Yeah, my son, he's eight. And so what experience does he have in the business world or making decisions? And my wife had made a video for her business and she hadn't posted it yet. And she was talking to my son about it and he said, well, why haven't you uploaded it yet? And she said, well, she was taken aback. She didn't know how to answer. She said, well, I guess I'm afraid. And he was like, yeah, but if you just put it out there, then it will be out there and it doesn't matter what happens because you already did it. Why would you not? And she was like, looking at this eight-year-old boy, she's been like, that is exactly why. Yeah, why have I not done it? So she uploaded the video. It was done. It was a success. But she was holding off because of fear. And so we have to go back to that inner child, right? That inner child is like, wow. He doesn't understand why he wouldn't. He doesn't understand. No fear, no doubt. Just do it. Right? Because he hasn't been burned yet, right? He hasn't been burned. He hasn't been judged. Yeah. Right? And so when you make these decisions, one of the things that I concentrate on is like, I don't care what anybody else thinks about this, right? Yeah. If I'm going to weigh all options out, and when I say weigh all options out, when it comes to like minimal stuff, like picking where you go to eat, I'll make the same scenario, right? Hey, Kendra, babe, where do you want to go on a date night? It's your turn to pick. I don't know. You pick. Okay, cool. I don't want to go there. Babe, where do you want to go pick? Where do you want to go eat? Yeah. It's minimal. So I don't want that to deplete my energy. But when it comes to like maybe a divorce or maybe a big lifestyle change as far as like moving homes or moving jobs, right? This isn't stuff that you're going to snap a finger, flip a switch and go, I'm out. Yeah. Right? Because then you're just going off of emotion. You need to be able to dissect, reflect on that, maybe take a few weeks to see, look yourself in the mirror, talk to an accountability partner, talk to a best friend, talk to somebody that you admire, that you look up to as far as a mentor and kind of get their perspective on things. But when it comes to fast decisions, man, like we've touched on on firing and some of these different things and places to eat and just minute stuff of daily decisions, just do it, settle moving forward and you're going to learn from it. You're going to adjust. You're going to evolve and you're going to adapt to that environment. It is building a muscle. You're like, well, yeah, picking a restaurant versus should I get divorced or not? It's a big leap, you know? Right. But where you make little decisions and get more and more comfortable, it really does show up in the big things because it is, you resonate, right? It's like you're building confidence and understanding that this doesn't, the consequences is not going to be as dire as I thought it was. And it's something that's so important and you can look back and see all the slew of decisions that got you there and it guaranteed is going to be a set of decisions that get you out, whether you stay or not. But everything revolves around decisions. It's like true for your, if your money's not where it wants to be, your fitness, your health, relationships, I guess that's the good part, right? You've made bad decisions and none of those things are the way you want it to be. It's your next decision that's going to get you out. It's the only thing. So it's going to, like you said, get an accountability group or get an accountability partner and really start honing in on that. And you can have the life that you want versus the next set of decisions. I think it's, when it's easy to put something off, that's when the decisions don't get made. Like let's say it's an email or something that's multi-step and it's a little confusing. Like I don't know what to do next with that. That seems to be, to me, the thing that shows up the most with folk, like little things like that. But when you keep putting lots of things off like that, that's an overwhelming, it adds up into just, you feel burned out because there's so many things on the back burner, decisions that you should have made quickly. Those are the things that, if you keep them off your plate, then you don't get tired. And that's one thing I noticed about you is that you said that, I think it was a week or two ago, like you can't have it on your plate because you can't sit with it. It's burning in you. How would you coach someone on that? Because is that an innate skill? Or how do you get that for someone? How do you help them learn that? Because they don't want to, because I've been thinking, ever since you said it, I'm like, yeah, that's sitting on my mind. I can't sit with this. I don't like it. I'm going to get it off my plate now. And it feels great. It's done. Then more things come back on the plate. And then if I don't have the energy or I'm tired, I'm going to let that one slide. I'll do that tomorrow. And then it eats at me. It depletes the energy and you don't even notice it. Yes. Everything I'm saying there, do you hear something? What do you hear? Yeah, so two things. The first thing is when these things are sitting, they deplete your energy. They deplete your bandwidth. They deplete your creativity. As an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, business owner, just a person in general, these things are weighing on your mind. And so whether that be a small thing or whether that be a big thing, you have to put a process and system in place, meaning you've got to be intentional about it every single day to come to a decision. Because if you don't, it sits within you and you think about it. You wonder why you're sleep sad. You wonder why your health, your energy, your vitality, your joy, your bliss, all these things are lagging. It's because everything is just weighing on you. Especially if you're a business owner. We have decisions. There's dozens of it. Helping grow, level up, and live. There are decisions that we're constantly coming into. It's just like, yep, yep, yep, yep. Nope, nope, nope, nope. So you're either making yes or no. And here's the key ingredient. You learn over time when you make decisions, when you just make these decisions, falling forward. You're either going to learn one or two things. You're going to learn from it or you're not. And you'll just keep repeating, which is the definition of insanity. So obviously if you're wanting to level up and live, you're going to learn from the decisions that you're making until you build that confidence within. So whatever's eating you up inside, and if you know, and you're like, that's me, then you know what you have to do. You have to make a decision. And so if it's a small decision, okay, cool. Make the decision fast and learn from it, right? You either, you're going to fail or you're going to, it's not failure, it's just going to be, you're going to be a learning. It's going to be a learning curve. Or if it's a big lifestyle change, right, whether it's a relationship or a friendship or it's a job change, then take a week or two. But here's the biggest piece of advice. You need to be intentional about it. Look at it every single day. Talk to a spouse, somebody that you respect. They're going to be able to shed the light and share so much perspective. That's why we're so big on mentors because mentors have typically been where you've been. Yeah. And so they're going to be able to help kind of hold you through that. That's awesome, man. When you're speaking there, like since we've been doing this together, and we're not putting in 40-hour weeks here like physical of like hitting hammers type stuff, labor stuff, but working with you, the things that, just little things that need to be done, little things that need to be handled. Those decisions, I do, I make them super quick. I know what to do. And because I know there's a time frame and an expectation between the two of us, I get them done, knock them out because I certainly don't want to come at you knowing that you've held up your end of the bargain and I've not. That's not honorable for me. And so I'm going to make sure I get it done. And it feels fantastic. Like you have been an accountability partner for me. It's funny because I know you don't need that for your personality type. Like my skill sets are elsewhere, but you bringing that to the table for me has been huge. And so it's just how many times have we said it? And we're in our mastermind group and other things that we've got coming. It's like you do what other, the people you hang around with, you end up being like them. You're around with someone who makes fast decisions, you're going to be a fast decision maker. And the more you hang around with them, faster it's going to happen, right? I have experienced that firsthand. It's so strange. I almost look at myself and be like, who are you? I love this guy. I love it. And what's bleeding into my career, medical equipment sales, which I'm really enjoying right now. And this has been a big part of me loving that because I've been taking more decisive action. More things have been happening in there. Yes. I mean, there's great things, things I was afraid of before. I was afraid of the outcomes. And now my thought is get in there, find out what doesn't work, get back out. And then I can go back in once I know more. And typically when I go in, I'm not finding out what doesn't work. I'm already finding out what works. But in my mind, it could have been a two month process to get myself in there and work out all the angles. Nope, just get in there. Have enough, let's say, have enough idea of what to do. And that's enough to get to the next step instead of having all the knowledge, all the confidence that I'm trying to build that just can never come without the experience. You mentioned honor. So tell me more about that because that's important here. Because when you're making decisive decisions, when you're a decisive player in the game, and you're failing forward, you're moving forward, you're learning is what I'm hearing you say. But you said honor, which is an important note because it's aligned with your identity, your purpose, your why, right? So speak to that on these decisions. This allows you to open up and make these decisive decisions because you're like, is this honoree of me? So I know you align it and you're seeing that and that's what we stress all the time. Finding the why, the core value behind it and is your action aligning with that? Yeah, that's so true because when you're not, so my, like it's, I think since I was young, doing the right thing has just always been, that's what you do, right? And so if I'm not holding up my end of the bargain, it just eats, that's what eats at me. And so it also lines up with integrity. We could also, honor and integrity are different things, but most people might resonate with the more integrity side of things because if you're out of integrity with yourself and with someone else, it just eats you up, burns you up. It will steal your shadow and you're not the fully, most full, effective, most powerful version of yourself because it's just corroding this, you're not confident in yourself. So what's interesting is when I think about being around, us being together and me, adopting, I don't know what the right word is there, the habit of making fast decisions. I'll do it for this, but when I'm on my own, I've noticed in the past, I won't do it for myself. Why would I not, if I'm showing up and getting it done because I don't want to disappoint somebody else, but I'll disappoint myself, hold off, I'll do it tomorrow, it's difficult, I don't feel like it, but that is no way to live. That's really, that's like a hell because then you're just stuck in your own brain and especially if you don't have anybody accountable, that is, you just keep doing it more and more. You're enforcing that muscle of not making decisions quickly so you disappoint yourself because really what are you telling yourself there? I'm not valuable enough. I'm not, I don't have the honor there and so what I've noticed in myself is recently, now that I've discovered this, I'm like, no, I am worth it. I want to be honorable to myself because then that makes me, I know how it makes me feel, which makes me feel strong, makes me feel powerful, accomplished and it's funny because I've had all these achievements like made all the commissions and all the deals I've done and all the things I've done in my life and I think all of those are to think the successes came when I was on point with myself. I felt confident. I was honorable to myself and whenever it spiraled down, it's when I made the decision against my own nature and I've enforced that and that, so that spiraled down. I'm hoping that the audience is hearing that they can resonate with, well, I hope I'm not missing that but I see it in other people too and maybe you do as well. Do you see that with your coaches? I was going to say, man, I can think of a story that so it's January 16th and if you're in Texas, it's 15 degrees outside, roads are frozen and so we shoot our podcast video or we shoot our episodes for the following week on Tuesdays and it's January 16th. We're shooting it and typically before we start shooting the episode, I always cook breakfast for Ewan and before the breakfast, we always do typically a full plunge or we do like a 5, 6, 7 mile run. Well, yesterday I told Ewan and if you, again, live in Texas, you're probably staying at home, you're probably staying in your warm bed and you're probably not getting out because that's what society is telling you and I'm not saying you have to do this but I told Ewan, I was like, dude, we can do everything virtually. That's the beautiful thing about the podcast. You can do it from your home. I can do it from my home and normally in the past, I've been like, you know what, dude? You're right, man. That's a good point. You know, I completely understand. Let's do the virtual but it wasn't like that. Ewan was like, as soon as I told him, I was like, Ewan, won't you, you know, think about staying from home. It's going to be a 30 minute drive. It's freezing outside. It's wrecked all up and down. Interstate 45 and you know what you told me? Nope, I'm going to be there and I remember thinking and reflecting and I didn't say anything. I was like, he just made a quick, decisive decision so we could probably spend a lot of time on that but that just goes to show you like his mission, his why, his core values were greater than anything else on making that fast decision and it made it easy for him too to make that decision. Nobody's hurt, man. Nobody's hurt. Yeah, got here safe. Safe and sound. It was 5.30 this morning. I'm not saying you have to do this but that's the power of making that decisive decision. Now, you could have gotten a rep this morning. Then you would have reflected back on that and was that the best decision? Was that the safest decision? I would be happy that I made the decision quickly. Now, I just deal with what happens. Most likely not going to be injured. Car's probably going to get messed up. I can get that fixed but I'd rather be here. And it's more important for me to be here because I love this. I enjoy it and it's for other people. That's the thing with decisions though, Ewan. That's what I'm talking about. When you have the purpose behind something, the why, right? Then you become a stoppable force and especially you surround yourself with guys like me and guys like you and guys in our tribe, in our community and level up and live, right? The people that have leaned in, they are seeing this more than ever. They're manifesting this and their lives are changing forever. I know for the sake of time, I want to share this story. I've been twiddling my thumbs here for 25 years now when it comes to decision making. So, we've been talking about quick decisions, right? And it makes it easier when you have the why, you have the purpose and you make those quicker decisions and you learn from it moving forward. So, it's January of 2024, if you're listening to this. 14 months ago, in December of 2022, I was at a place in my life where we had the Landscape Company and very successful six-digit company and it was at a place where like, do I want to spend another year running this company as the CEO of the Landscape Company? And I had a decision to make between doing that and partnering up with another landscape owner and joining partnerships. And I spent several weeks going back and forth. Me and this other individual had meetings. We went over all the documentation. We went over everything. We were just ready to pull the trigger. But this was a three weeks in process. This wasn't a quick... That's a long time for you. A long time. Knowing you, yeah. But this is the importance of you don't want to just make a decision, right? Because it has to be sustainable. It has to be aligned with the purpose and why. So, I was able to spend those three weeks reflecting back on why do I want to stay in... Why do I want to keep the Landscape Company? Why do I want to partner up with this individual? Why do I want to do this for another 12 months? When I got really honest with myself, Ewan, nothing spoke out to me. Nothing was going to be sustainable in keeping this business. So, I did... This was kind of the final scenario, the grand scheme of things, in my third week. I remember it was cold here in Willis, Texas and I walked out outside, had my... I remember having my... It was about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. It was sunny outside. We had a little pathway in our community. And I was feeling good, probably just had a Fit A. And it was just me. I walked outside, had a little bit of music going in my ears, just real soft. I wanted to take a 30-minute walk. I started walking. I said, you know what? I'm going to pray to God right now. I'm going to pray and I'm going to say, God, talk to me. And so, for the next 10 or 15 minutes, we just had this in-spirit, in-frequency, like, God, what should I do? I don't know. I've been working on this for three weeks. It's depleting my energy, my bandwidth, my creativity because I'm thinking about it all the time. I know this is going to be a fast decision, God, but I need your direction. I need your help. I need your guidance. I need your peace. I need my comfort. The wisdom. And I kid you not, man. I don't know what happened, but in-spirit, I started tearing up. God was speaking to me and basically, in my heart, I was yelling, like, yeah, let's go, man. I was so pumped. I was so pumped. And by myself, people were looking at me probably like I was crazy. But because I was talking out loud and in-spirit, in-frequency, you know, it had come to me and finally hit after weighing everything out and dissecting everything and aligned with what I wanted 2023 to look like was that I was going to sell the landscape company and I was not going to be partnering up and I was going to be starting a coaching business to impact more people. And look what happened. And look what happened. I called up all my friends and asked them, I said, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm doing. They probably looked at me like I'm crazy. January 1st, you know, it's like, we got to do the podcast, we got to do Patreon group, we got to do emails and I haven't stopped looking back and now we've evolved to a beautiful, you know, business and we've got our mastermind class and all this other stuff. So, yeah, man. Man, you know I love crazy because I'm, as soon as you said it, I'm like, I'm coming, dude. I love it, man. I love that you, because look at your decision has impacted so many people now. Like, people are now making decisions to back it up on their independent ways but you set the playing field up for everybody and it's just awesome, man. Because if I don't make that decision, if I don't take that time and align it with my purpose and why I'm doing it, then I'm not doing this. The podcast doesn't happen. People aren't listening right now. Yes. People are not, you're not listening right now. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Right? And I'm still running a landscape company and I'm miserable with it. I'm miserable with it. Yeah. So, I don't make that decision. But because I was able to dissect and get to that 80-20 rule, get to that 80%, I was like, man, I got to take this leap of faith and God spoke to me. He told me to take that leap of faith. Then I was like, let's do it, man. I felt good about it. Well, you know, I'm glad you made that decision because this has been just a joy, man. I love every second of this and I'm just, and I know because of me enjoying other people that I know in my life that might not have known you are enjoying it. It's wild. My preacher is like, right as I was leaving church, he said, listen, the next episode, I was like, Dwight, I didn't even know you knew, man. That was so cool. Yeah, I didn't tell you that, did I? Yeah, he's like, I'm going to listen to an episode this week. I was like, and I love this guy. He's so good. He's an older gentleman too but he's got a young vitality so I know he just, Dwight, if you're listening, hey, thanks, man. Yeah, good. But man, on that note, level up and live, man. Level up and live.